Gaming is emerging as a serious career option for gamers in India while gaming PCs are seeing upward demand despite dwindling PC sales overall, HP India Senior Director (Personal Systems), Vickram Bedi told FE on the sidelines of the company’s new Omen and Victus portfolio launch.
The senior HP India official further said that the country’s gaming market is witnessing a “significant” transformation with gaming no longer restricted to professionals but finding an audience among the mainstream, too.
HP’s new gaming laptop line-up seems built from scratch to cater to this audience in line with the growing trend. The laptops— Victus 16, Omen Transcend 16, and Omen 16 (2023 edition)— bring high-end gaming on a budget with price in India starting at Rs 59,999. Excerpts.
The rapid growth of India’s PC gaming market and how HP envisions itself as the frontrunner in providing cutting-edge gaming solutions to the Indian gaming community?
India’s gaming market has undergone a significant transformation, shifting its focus from professional gamers to a more mainstream audience. Back in 2016, the country sold approximately 40,000 gaming notebooks annually, but by 2022, that number skyrocketed to nearly one million units. That’s an incredible increase of around 2000% in just 6-7 years.
While the overall PC market has shown demand softness, gaming PC sales is bucking the trend and after strong growth in 2022, gaming PC sales has registered y-o-y growth in the first quarter of 2023. Over the past 4-5 years, the gaming PC market has experienced strong double-digit growth, and we expect this trend to persist in the long run. India has always been a significant market for mobile gaming, but now we’re witnessing a notable shift from mobile gamers to PC gaming enthusiasts. Many gamers in India are seeking to enhance their gaming experience, and that’s why they are gravitating towards PC gaming.
We always listen to the gaming community and innovate our product portfolio. Our main priority is to keep up with the rapidly changing preferences of gamers. We understand that gamers come from various backgrounds, whether they are transitioning from mobile gaming to PC, passionate enthusiasts, or professional players. That’s why we offer a diverse selection of gaming devices to cater to all types of gamers. This approach has proven to be highly successful for us, as we continue to meet the needs and preferences of our valued customers.
How HP is building a gaming ecosystem for gamers and mainstream gaming?
Gaming is no longer limited to a specific group of people. It’s a myth that gaming is only for hardcore gamers. Gaming is for everyone, even if the level of involvement may vary. Our aim is to make gaming mainstream and create a gaming ecosystem that appeals to all types of audiences. That’s why we have expanded our gaming portfolio with a range of OMEN and Victus laptops and desktops. These devices not only cater to different types of gamers but also allow them to fully immerse themselves, get more involved, and enhance their gameplay.
Moreover, we wanted to offer our consumers an even more exceptional gaming experience. We didn’t want to be just another gaming hardware company—we aimed to provide a complete solution that integrates seamlessly into our gamers’ entire ecosystem, from software to peripherals. Gaming has become more mainstream than ever, and we wanted to be at the forefront of serving this wider audience.
We are thrilled to introduce our new portfolio, which includes the enhanced Omen Gaming Hub. This software is specifically designed to optimise your gaming performance and ensure you get the absolute best out of your PC and games. It offers a range of tools to boost performance, personalised controls for tailoring your setup to your liking, and the convenience of effortlessly playing all your favorite games. We are proud to share that we currently have 2 million monthly active users with 40 million games boosted on Omen Gaming Hub. Plus, in collaboration with HyperX, we are making our products work even better together. We have teamed up to engineer the world’s first gaming laptops with an embedded module for seamless audio pairing, which comes with the option of a bundled HyperX Cloud II Core Wireless gaming headset.
Investments made by HP in scaling up PC gaming infrastructure?
Gaming in India has become a lifestyle and emerging as a serious career option for gamers. Recognising this, HP made a conscious decision to invest in the gaming industry and make gaming accessible to the younger generation. This led to the creation of the Omen Playground Stores. These stores serve as a hub where mobile and first-time gamers can discover the incredible world of PC gaming, while experienced gamers can indulge in the cutting-edge technology of HP devices and the Hyper X gaming ecosystem.
We currently have 12 Omen Playground stores up and running in prominent cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Trivandrum, and Hubli, among others. Our goal is to expand this initiative even further, aiming to open a total of 40 Omen Playground stores across India by 2023. Our vision is to provide gamers across the country with a dedicated space where they can fully immerse themselves in the wonders of gaming and experience the power of HP’s innovative gaming devices.
Additionally, we are building focused after sales capabilities for gaming segment only:
- Gamers for Gamers: We provide premium agents trained to take special calls regarding very technical requests pertaining to Omen and Victus laptops.
- Support on Wheels: An option to explore product and accessories in our gaming van while repair is done.
- DOA Claims: Hassle free replacement of DOA unit up to 28 days from date of purchase.
- Call me back option: With this initiative, users can describe the issues they are facing via our website, and we ensure a call back to them for resolution.
- 12×7 Onsite support: We provide 12×7 support at our consumers’ doorstep to immediately check and resolve any issues.
- 24×7 WhatsApp support: We provide a 24×7 support on WhatsApp for resolution and case creation for gaming devices.
Take us through HP’s new Omen and Victus portfolio.
In today’s gaming landscape, gamers require devices that strike the perfect balance between being thin, lightweight, powerful, and portable. Additionally, they need devices that can seamlessly adapt to both work and play, creating a hybrid environment that caters to their diverse needs. Our newly launched PC portfolio includes OMEN Transcend 16, OMEN 16, Victus 16 and HyperX 27-inch gaming monitor –is built to address the evolving needs of consumers.
Omen Transcend 16 is HP’s thinnest and lightest gaming PC at under 2.1kg and 19.9 mm, with strong performance capabilities with Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 series graphics and 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13900HX processor. It is built for gaming and creation with a cutting-edge screen, premium slim chassis, and high-end internal components.
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Every device in our lineup comes equipped with OMEN Tempest Cooling, ensuring better cooling performance to keep your gaming sessions running smoothly. In an exciting collaboration with HyperX, we’ve even engineered the world’s first gaming laptops with an embedded module for intuitive audio pairing. All our newly announced products come enhanced with powerful features from the OMEN Gaming Hub. These features are designed to optimise and personalize your PC experiences, whether you’re a passionate gamer or a creative professional. With our latest PC portfolio, we are confident that we have created devices that not only meet but exceed the expectations of gamers and creators alike.
